Beach Artist Turned Salvage into Seascapes
Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel
Art always tells a story. SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel discovered this was true one year at the Annual Seal Beach Art Show, where artistic creations were displayed against a picture-perfect backdrop of the pier, sand and surf.
Looking around we saw delicate hand-blown Venetian-style glass works of sea life figures, handmade jewelry, tapestries, paintings, and sculptures. All the artists were eager to share their stories. The story that touched us the most was the one told by Marty Naftel, an artist who created beautiful paintings and miniature beach scenes, made from things he found on the beach.
Naftel, a local artist who spent many years battling depression, said that he had lost interest in his art until he got help from Jamboree HOMES, Inc., an Orange County organization that provides support services and housing assistance to people with developmental disabilities.
Marty Naftel painting©
“HOMES, Inc. saved my life,” said Naftel. “I was depressed and within two weeks of moving into the HOMES house I was feeling so much better.”
One fan of Naftel's art said, “I love that he takes items he finds on the beach and re-purposes them into something beautiful.”
In addition to the help he got from Jamboree, Naftel also credited a chance meeting with fellow artist John Mamerck for his rekindled interest in painting and sculpting. “I met John at a church rummage sale and we got to talking about art,” Naftel said. Later he showed Mamerck some art pieces that he made earlier from black coral collected from the beach.
John Mamerck with Marty Naftel
This was the start of their friendship and a collaboration in the business Beach Salvage Art, which created art works out of things the two of them salvaged from on the beach.
Naftel and Mamerck used to spend much of their time at the beach gathering coral, shells, driftwood, and various discards for their artistic creations.
One of their favorite art shows to participate in was a booth sponsored by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), which recognizes the value of art and its ability to heal.
Naftel received the Mental Health Association’s Thomas F. Reilly Community Service Award and NAMI’s Artist of the Year Award
Until he passed away in April 2023 Marty Naftel kept busy turning the flotsam and jetsam he found on the beach into re-imagined and beautiful art works, giving them a new lease on life…much like the new beginning that he himself experienced.
Hearing Marty's story and becoming friends with him gave SurfWriter Girls Sunny and Patti a sense of joy that we still experience whenever we think of him.
We also have one of Naftel’s miniature art scenes...
to remind us of the beauty in even the smallest things around us.
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